Ken Maynard
One of the best movie equestrians of all time, Ken Maynard had been a 1920 world champion trick-rider and had toured with Pawnee Bill (aka Ted Wells) and Ringling Bros. before doubling for Marion Davies and playing the small, but important, role of Paul Revere in Janice Meredith (1924). A year later, Maynard starred in poverty row producer J. Charles Davis in a series of very low-budget oaters that also featured a group of ex-Follies girls, an odd mix that, in many ways, foreshadowed Maynard's later career and ultimate downfall. From Gower Gulch, Ken Maynard moved up to become First National's resident cowboy hero prior to the advent of sound. The Maynard-First National Westerns were top-flight affairs, with the star performing daring feats on his famous palomino horse, Tarzan. (A copyright infringement suit by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the creator of the pulp-fiction jungle hero of the same name, was finally dismissed in 1935.) The string of box-office and critical successes, of which, sadly, few examples remain, ended when Maynard left First National in favor of more pedestrian Universal. Increasingly difficult to handle, Maynard's reign at Carl Laemmle's huge, family-oriented lot proved brief, however, and he returned to star for a poverty row company, in this case Samuel Bischoff's KBS. Universal brought him back in 1933 as a replacement for the retiring Tom Mix, but Maynard's ego had, by then, gotten nearly out of control. He is credited with introducing the Singing Cowboy fad at this juncture (despite a voice that he himself often dismissed as "nasal soundin'" and amateurish, at best) and his Westerns became increasingly flamboyant, both in attitude and expenditure. The star, who had become his own producer, spent money with abandon, but the market for B-Westerns was diminishing and the otherwise so avuncular Carl Laemmle summarily replaced him with the less expensive (and far less volatile) Buck Jones. Still a potential moneymaker in the hinterlands, Maynard continued to star in low-budget Westerns through the mid-'40s -- at a reported salary of 850 dollars per picture as opposed to the 10,000-dollar paycheck he had received in his heyday -- but an ever expanding waistline and an impossible ego put the final nails in his cinematic coffin. Sadly, Maynard was never able to shake rumors that he had mistreated his equine co-stars and spent his declining years if not in outright poverty then in very diminished circumstances and, some said, an alcoholic stupor. One of the great showmen of early Hollywood action fare, Maynard died at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA. He was preceded in death by his brother, ultra-low-budget Western star, stunt double, and all-around good fellow Kermit Maynard, with whom he had always retained a rather strained relationship. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Filmography
American western star Ken Maynard's first starring vehicle -- filmed on a shoestring budget at California's St. Francis Dam -- $50,000 Reward was a not too exciting tale of a cowboy who inherits a piece of valuable property and is quickly besieged by a money-hungry villain. To generate some interest in the all-too-familiar proceedings, producer-director Clifford Elfelt hired six former Ziegfeld Follies girls and a young black buck-and-wing dancer named Ananias Berry, all of whom were thrown into the pot with nary an explanation. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
In his third Western for low-budget company Tiffany, Ken Maynard plays Ken Neville, a cowboy returning to the old homestead to find his father (Lafe McKee) and a fellow rancher (Robert Homans) killed. The dead neighbor's daughter, Mary Warner (Virginia Brown Faire), blames Ken, whom she believes to be the leader of a gang of rustlers. Overhearing a plot by Rance Collins (Frank Mayo) to rustle Mary's steers, Ken pretends to be looking to join the gang. Unfortunately, Ken's sidekick "Repeater" Simpson (Irving Bacon) unwittingly gives away his real identity and Rance has him locked up in a cabin. Aided by his wonder horse Tarzan, who breaks through a window, Ken makes his escape and is later able to round up the entire gang. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Apart from the fact that screenwriter John Francis Natteford named his lead heavy "Cole Porter," this Ken Maynard Western from low-budget producer Tiffany is regulation sagebrush fare. The nasty Mr. Porter (Hooper Atchley) is in the business of buying cattle from the ranchers, only to kill the men afterwards and retrieve the money. One of the intended victims, the Arizonian (Maynard), is found wounded in the desert by Kay Moore (Lina Basquette), who nurses him back to health. But Kay's father (Murdock MacQuarrie) is the next murder victim and the girl suspects the Arizonian, who is forced to flee. He hooks up with Emilio Vasquez (Michael Visaroff), a gregarious Mexican outlaw, and together they successfully trap Porter and his gang. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
In their third and final "Trail Blazers" Western together, Ken Maynard, Hoot Gibson and Bob Steele witness what appears to be a gang of Indians raiding a stagecoach. Investigating, the three lawmen discover that the attackers are actually white bandits dressed as Indians and that their leader is one Polini (Ian Keith), a gangster smuggling diamonds in the axle grease of the stagecoach wheels. Aided by young Donny Davis (Don Stewart) and pert Ruth Hampton (Myrna Dell), the "Trail Blazers" survive several clashes with death -- including being trapped inside a cave -- before Polini and his cohort, Banker Steve Lynch (Karl Hackett), are apprehended. In only her second Western, blonde heroine Myrna Dell was not exactly in awe of her veteran leading men who, as she later recalled were "old enough to be my grandfather!" Maynard, in fact, had come to the end of his long starring career. Unable to get along with his more athletic co-star Bob Steele, the often cantankerous left the series and only returned to films in rare cameo appearances. His place in the final two "Trail Blazers" Westerns was taken by Chief Thundercloud. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
The opening sequence of this Ken Maynard Western is spectacular: Attempting to save heroine Beth Marion from the ubiquitous runaway horse, the hero makes a death-defying, head-first plunge on horseback into the Kern River far below. The stunt was performed by Maynard's unfairly neglected double, Cliff Lyons, who would marry Marion two years later. As for Maynard himself, the veteran cowboy star didn't do much action-wise in Avenging Waters, spending instead an inordinate amount of time playing his mouth organ and making romantic chit-chat with Marion. The story is the old one about the fencing off of the once free range. Ken and his top hand, Slivers (Wally Wales, aka Hal Taliaferro), are delivering a herd of cattle to rancher Charles Mortimer (John Elliott) when they have a run-in with Marve Slater (Ward Bond). The latter is demanding that Mortimer remove his new fences or else. The "or else" proves to be damming up the river and leaving Mortimer without water for his cattle. Ken takes umbrage to this kind of vigilantism but is overpowered by Slater's henchmen, Hoppy (Tom London) and Jake (Glenn Strange). A rain storm causes the dam to burst and the waters rush toward the shack where Ken is held prisoner. He is saved in the nick of time by his clever palomino, Tarzan, while Slater is left to drown in his own flood. Maynard's legendary ornery temper caused all kinds of delays on this inexpensive Western and the veteran star was getting a bit paunchy to boot. Director Spencer Gordon Bennet was forced to use rear-projection in a scene where Maynard desperately attempts to grab hold of Tarzan, one of the very few instances that this technique was used in a B-Western. The grand finale, the flooding of the valley, was done using a model built to scale and is not bad for this kind of low-budget fare. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
Adopted brothers, both cattlemen, fight over the sheep man's daughter in this low budget but acceptable Ken Maynard Western from poverty row company KBS. Maynard, as Ken Lanning, and his adopted brother Wally Thompson (Wallace MacDonald both fall for Judy Winters (Ruth Hall) despite the fact that her family has committed the almost unpardonable sin of raising sheep on the range. When neither Ken nor Wally appear to be too troubled, their foster-father, old Winchester Thompson (Walter Law), hires the notorious gunman Butch Martin (Albert J. Smith). Between Fighting Men was the second of three Westerns teaming Ken Maynard with pretty Ruth Hall who, much to Ken's chagrin, would leave the screen shortly after to marry cinematographer Lee Garmes. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide
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